Rating: _**

It’s hard to tell what Dev Benegal’s first movie in 10 years has come out of, or where it is headed. To a film festival, perhaps? Road, Movie has enough exotic elements to make it palatable to international audiences but which could alienate local viewers. Evocative locations that look especially good when shot through wide lenses. Splashes of rich Indian colour. A wise old man and a sensuous woman. A tribute to the magic of cinema. Aesthetically shot love-making scene. World music soundtrack. They’re all there. 

Road, Movie is about Jaipur resident Vishnu (Abhay Deol) who escapes the drudgery of his father’s hair oil business by agreeing to deliver a truck to a friend in a city by the sea called Samudrabad. Vishnu looks very much like a citizen of another famous city by the sea rather than a frustrated young man from a small town. On his way, Vishnu picks up an orphan (Mohammed Faizal), a handyman (Satish Kaushik) and a gypsy (Tannishtha Chatterjee). Having assembled these characters, Benegal gives them something to do: use the projector and film reels lying in the back of Vishnu’s truck to screen movies along their journey and hunt for water. A movie that begins as a tribute to the seduction of cinema becomes about a quest for the liquid gold in Rajasthan. The film barely recovers from the detour.

Stripped of cultural specificity and logical motivations, the actors struggle to be convincing. Although Deol is usually watchable in all his films, his selfish and spineless Vishnu is an unappealing leading man. The movie belongs to Kaushik’s mechanic and impromptu projectionist, who takes all the big decisions and delivers all the little messages about sharing and caring. The film also stars Yashpal Sharma as the head of water mafia who has never had a head massage in his life. Nandini Ramnath